Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Final Interview with Pres. Schwartz

Hey Mom!

Well, we had a pretty good week. On Tuesday, I had my interview withPres. Schwartz. It was really good but kind of awkward at the sametime, mostly when he got to the marriage portion. He did the classic"it's not good to be alone" line, and at one point he leaned back inhis chair and said, "OK, I'm now prospective Sister Squires, we are onour first date, ask me questions." Haha it was kind of funny. He told me I have to do power-datingwhen I go home, which is basically just laying everything on the tablein the first date and setting expectations, almost like in a lessonwith a new investigator. Yeah, we'll see how that goes. Other thanthat, I learned a lot of good things from the interview and Pres.Schwartz gave me a lot of good instruction. We spent the restof the day in Dortmund since it was our P-day.

Wednesday consisted of going on a split to Unna with Elder Pratt. Wedid service all day, helping some members transport a piano to amember's physical therapy practice. It was a good day, but we didn'tget to do much of anything else since the places were so far away wehad to travel to. Meanwhile, Elder Moore and Elder Haskell met with aninvestigator, Monica, to help her stop smoking. Apparently theydiscussed the Atonement a lot with her.

On Thursday, Elder Pratt and I took a train back to Hagen and there wehad district meeting. We did some roleplays trying to meet theconcerns of our investigators. Afterwards, Elder Moore and I went toIserlohn for an appointment with Bruder Kraft and his friend who playsguitar and bass. The friend had questions about why we are called'Elder' and what similarities there are between us and the eldersspoken of in the old testament. We pretty much just read theexplanation in the bible dictionary, and that was really helpful. Wealso got to jam a little bit on guitar. I am super excited to playmore guitar when I get home!

We did not get a lot accomplished on Friday because I got sick. One ofthe kids in Unna, whose family was moving the piano, was sick, and Iam pretty sure that is the source of my sickness. I wrote my missionhistory (a roughly 5 page document required from Pres. Schwartz) justgiving an outline of my mission, my areas, my companions, and thepeople I have taught.

There was a couple from the Siegen branch who got baptized on Saturdayin our ward building since they don't have a baptismal font in Siegen.It took a long time, and we had to clean everything up afterward. Theguy who got baptized was a pretty big dude and it took him 4 times toget baptized because he wouldn't go all the way under the water. Thefourth time, he just kind of fell backwards. It was kind of an awkwardbaptism, but it's all good haha. After that was all said and done, wetook a trip to Iserlohn and had a lesson with Manuella. It went well.She was not doing too well, so we gave her a Priesthood blessing.

I started feeling more sick on Sunday. I was coughing a lot and mynose was very plugged, but I still was able to get through all of themeetings, give a talk about the Atonement, have a lesson with Moritzabout some of the commandments and his baptismal program, and have aneating appointment with an older couple in the ward. After that, I waspretty much done for the day and just rested.

I was not doing too well on Monday, so it was another day of mostlyresting and getting some easy things done, like preparing thebaptismal program for Moritz. Other than that, I just kind of laidaround and took it easy. I am feeling better today, I still just havea little bit of a stuffy nose and a little cough.

Well, that was our week. It really is starting to hit me that I gohome in a couple weeks. I started packing so that I would not have alast-minute scramble in a couple weeks right before I have to go. Ialso sent home a big package today, mostly filled with books, letters,and other random things.

Anyway, I hope you have a great week! Love you!

LG, Daniel

PS For Moritz's baptism, we will be singing "A Child's Prayer" and "Iam a Child of God." I don't know yet if we have someone to play thepiano for the service, so could you practice those a little just incase we would need a back up pianist? That would be awesome!